Location
New York, New York
Date
16 Apr 2004, 8:00am - 9:30am
Abstract
Times Square in New York City was chosen for the new Reuters Headquarters Building for its significance as the crossroads of the world. The headquarters consists of a 30-story office tower with a foundation footprint of 30,000 square feet including two subsurface levels nearly 40 feet deep for retail shops, parking and access to the Times Square subway station. This paper describes the geotechnical challenges that were faced to minimize the effects of both the construction excavation, mainly in mica schist rock, and a new permanent structure on two adjacent landmark theatres, the subway structures, and the streets and utilities of Times Square. Additionally, there could be no interruption of theatre performances or subway service. Engineering solutions included:
1. Supporting the subway structures during construction with a combination of a sand bag, wale and raker system.
2. Maximizing the underground tower space by creating a sidewalk vault.
3. Supporting and protecting two landmark theatres by sequencing the support with several tiers of rock anchors.
4. Supporting both theatre foundation walls and the “re-entry” corner of the New Victory Theatre by chipping the bedrock and carefully supporting what remained on the perimeter. Monitoring equipment was installed in the theatres for immediate notification of any movement and/or high vibrations.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
5th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2004 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Ciancia, Andrew J. and Biesiadecki, Gregory L., "Reuters Comes to Times Square" (2004). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 25.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/5icchge/session05/25
Reuters Comes to Times Square
New York, New York
Times Square in New York City was chosen for the new Reuters Headquarters Building for its significance as the crossroads of the world. The headquarters consists of a 30-story office tower with a foundation footprint of 30,000 square feet including two subsurface levels nearly 40 feet deep for retail shops, parking and access to the Times Square subway station. This paper describes the geotechnical challenges that were faced to minimize the effects of both the construction excavation, mainly in mica schist rock, and a new permanent structure on two adjacent landmark theatres, the subway structures, and the streets and utilities of Times Square. Additionally, there could be no interruption of theatre performances or subway service. Engineering solutions included:
1. Supporting the subway structures during construction with a combination of a sand bag, wale and raker system.
2. Maximizing the underground tower space by creating a sidewalk vault.
3. Supporting and protecting two landmark theatres by sequencing the support with several tiers of rock anchors.
4. Supporting both theatre foundation walls and the “re-entry” corner of the New Victory Theatre by chipping the bedrock and carefully supporting what remained on the perimeter. Monitoring equipment was installed in the theatres for immediate notification of any movement and/or high vibrations.
